Elena LaVictoire's Library tagged abortion →  View Popular

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal
funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an
opportunity to protect human life - not end it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government
takeover of health care does just that.  On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is
Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to
determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan. 
The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered
in the Exchange covers abortions.

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be
charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan.  It’s right
there on line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.”  The
premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account - and these federal
funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

Section 213 describes the process in which the Health Benefits
Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay
for elective abortions under the government-run plan.  The
Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

Harris says that there is a need to "cross borders and boundaries (including seemingly inflexible ones like 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life')" in order to "reflect seriously on the question of how providers determine their limit for abortion," and warned that the issues surrounding the question "may frankly be too dangerous for pro-choice movements to acknowledge."

Harris then describes how she once performed an abortion on a woman whose fetus was at 18 weeks gestation. Ironically, Harris herself was pregnant at the time, and her baby was also at 18 weeks gestation.

Washington,
DC (LifeNews.com) -- A nonpartisan web site that routinely serves
as a watchdog for public officials, the media and political groups
says President Barack Obama has it wrong. FactCheck.org says the current
health care plans pending in Congress do authorize abortion funding,
contrary to Obama's claims otherwise.

"Despite
what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered
by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plan,"
the web site concludes.

At
issue are concerns from pro-life groups that the government-run health
care plans would include abortion funding and coverage. Obama has
said they don't and gone as far as accusing pro-life groups of lying
about the legislation.

The
FactCheck web site, run by staff at the University of Pennsylvania,
says "it's true that House and Senate legislation would allow
a new 'public' insurance plan to cover abortions." The House
bill does so "despite" the addition of the Capps
amendment that pro-abortion lawmakers say prohibits abortion funding.

"Obama
has said in the past that 'reproductive services' would be covered
by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance
plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that,"
FactCheck adds.

That
mirrors what National Right to Life and other pro-life groups have
said, with NRLC legislative director Douglas Johnson explaining, "the
bill backed by the White House (H.R. 3200) explicitly authorizes the
government plan to cover all elective abortions."

By now you're likely one of 1.5 million people who have seen the graphic video of Neda Soltan dying after being shot in the chest on June 20, 2009, during protests in Iran following the presidential election.

The video shows Neda collapsing into the arms of two men, who try to stop her bleeding with their bare hands. Suddenly, Neda's eyes roll up and to the right, almost as if they are looking at the cell phone video camera chronicling her death. Blood begins pouring from her mouth and nose, into one eye and down her face. Cries erupt from the crowd, and you know Neda is dead.

I don't know how the tragic video of Neda's death is any less graphic than a video by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform showing the tragic, graphic deaths of children by abortion, but it is according to YouTube, which removed this video.

There's something about showing abortion that sets it apart from all other videos in the Big Brother eyes of YouTube.

YouTube allows almost any surgery video imaginable, like gastric bypass, gallbladder removal, toe amputation, appendectomy and brain tumor removal, and gross-out body parts videos like a buttock fecal fistula or peritoneal cancer – but not abortion.

"My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science," Ireland told Tarts while promoting her insightful new book "Real Solutions for Busy Mom: Your Guide to Success and Sanity."

"What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there."

However Ireland admitted that she did everything she could to avoid becoming a believer in pro-life.

"I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time," Ireland argued. "I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue."

Father John Jenkins likely thought himself very clever. Professor Mary Ann Glendon just took him to school.

In declining to receive the Laetare Medal alongside President Barack Obama’s honorary doctorate of laws at next month’s commencement, Glendon has refused to participate in the shabby manipulation Father Jenkins attempted to engineer. It is a rare personage who could ennoble an award by refusing to receive it, but Professor Glendon has done just that. The Laetare Medal will now be known best for the year in which it was declined. Glendon chose, to use the apt words of Bishop John D’Arcy in this regard, truth over prestige.